The world will add 142 GW of new solar this year.

News • Nikolay Chavdarov • 09 January 2020

However, with the forecast resorting to comparing the prediction to the figures recorded a decade ago, a glance at the individual market expectations indicates continuing uncertainty in the world’s biggest solar market, a dramatic slowdown after an impressive 2019 in Europe and a resumption of activity in India which will nevertheless leave the populous nation a mountain to climb to hit its 2022 solar ambition.

While solar installations outside China last year are expected to have grown by as much as 53%, IHS Markit is confident enough to predict only continued “double digit growth” outside China this year. Meanwhile, the summary issued to publicize release of the report predicted the uncertainty dogging the world’s biggest solar market is likely to continue until the details of the next five-year plan are made public next year.

Noting Europe almost doubled the amount of new solar capacity installed last year, compared to 2018, IHS Markit expects only a 5% year-on-year rise this time around, with the region expected to deploy more than 24 GW of new capacity. Of that figure, around 63% will be accounted for by Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Ukraine.